page_title: Russian Enlightenment
section_title: Arts
hierarchical_section_title: Russian Enlightenment / Arts
context_page_description: The Russian Age of Enlightenment was a period in the 18th century in which the government began to actively encourage the proliferation of arts and sciences, which had a profound impact on Russian culture. During this time, the first Russian university was founded, a library, a theatre, a public museum, as well as relatively independent press. Like other enlightened despots, Catherine the Great played a key role in fostering the arts, sciences, and education.
  The national Enlightenment in the Russian Empire differed from its Western European counterpart in that it promoted further modernization of all aspects of Russian life and was concerned with abolishing the institution of serfdom in Russia. The Pugachev Rebellion and French Revolution may have shattered the illusions of rapid political change, but the intellectual climate in Russia was altered irrevocably. Russia's place in the world was debated by Denis Fonvizin, Mikhail Shcherbatov, Andrey Bolotov, Alexander Radishchev, and Ivan Boltin; these discussions precipitated the divide between the radical, western, conservative and Slavophile traditions of Russian thought.
context_section_description: Enlightenment ideas were popularized by the nascent Russian theatre. The first Russian theater group of this kind was established in Yaroslavl by Fyodor Volkov and Ivan Dmitrievsky during Elizaveta's reign. Aleksandr Sumarokov was responsible for the repertory of their theatre.
  During Catherine's reign the leading playwrights included Denis Fonvizin, who ridiculed the rusticity of provincial gentry and their thoughtless imitation of all things French; Vladislav Ozerov, who authored a great number of Neoclassical tragedies with touches of sentimentalism; and Yakov Knyazhnin, whose drama about a popular uprising against Rurik's rule was declared Jacobin and publicly burnt in 1791.
  Even Catherine's favourite poet, Gavrila Derzhavin—who sought in his odes to combine amusement with instruction—would see some of his poems banned from print during the last years of her reign.
caption: Parasha Zhemchugova, a serf actress-turned-countess.
exif: {}